Justine
by Caffein
Summary: A novel-version of the DLC for Amnesia - Amnesia: Justine.
1. Chapter 1

She struggled to clear her mind, feeling as if she had awoken from a heavy slumber. Despite the constant ache that seemed to envelop her entire body, she desperately tried to remain calm. She struggled to get a sense of where she was, tears of pain blotting her vision.

Where was she?

She rested on a bare bed frame. There was a strange cord on the ceiling, along with a lantern. The was a phonograph in the corner. There was a heavy iron gate.

Her head pounded, her aching limbs twitched as she tried to lift herself up off the bed, and she felt almost blinded, despite the lack of light. It was a strange sensation to her; she wasn't used to pain. Or was she? She searched her mind for clues or memories, but none arose.

Fear spiked inside of her mind, adrenaline suddenly erasing the pain she felt. Her breathing was harsh and ragged, her heartbeat racing. She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember anything.

The surge of energy didn't help; her limbs simply seemed incapable of working. When her arms collapsed under her weight once more, she laid back down on the hard wooden bed frame in defeat. Before she finally lost consciousness from the fear and pain, her eyes rested on the rusted iron gate that seemed to keep her in. Someone was there.

She blacked out before she could call for help.

When she awoke once more in the dreary cell, she felt herself lacking the pain and disorientation from the last time. What was more, she could finally remember some details of her life and herself. Her name was Justine and she lived in France. Even these two small things were enough to bolster her confidence.

She stood easily and gazed sullenly at the cell gate, willing it to open. She tugged and pushed at it, but despite it's apparent bad condition, it stayed stubbornly in place. She tugged at her hair in frustration, her foot flying out in anger and striking the phonograph.

It was only then that she realized how ridiculous it was to have a phonograph of all things in a cell. Earlier when she had first made note of it, she had to have been delirious to not think of it as strange. After that conclusion she wondered whether or not the figure she had seen was also a part of her delirium.

She walked up to it and cranked it, foolishly startled when it started up and a woman's voice began talking.

"Bienvenue, you are now listening to the sound of my disembodied voice. It will serve you no purpose to look for me, for this is a voice from the past. I bid you welcome to my cabinet of perturbation. It is my study of the human psyche – specifically yours. A set of recordings have been prepared to chaperone you through the chambers ahead.

"There are a few parts to this study, and it is up to you – not only to pass, but to figure out what elements are important. Please go on, move into the next chamber. Just remember they can all be saved, there is always a way."

Justine reflected briefly on this strange and omniscient message. The woman's voice had been high and girlish and, Justine thought, very superficial. But something the woman had said bothered her, 'They can all be saved.' A dim feeling of hope welled up inside of her; there were others here as well!

Proceeding to the next chamber was a surprisingly easy task. All she had had to do was to take the oil lantern from above her head before the cord on the ceiling was cranked and the door pulled open.

Stepping out into the darkened hallway she looked at the lantern, frowning in disgust when she realized how useless it was to her – the lantern was empty! She held on to it tightly despite it's lack of use; she might find an oil potion to use on it later.

She turned around and went further down the hallway until she spotted a grate on the wall. She crouched and peered into it, feeling her heart thump loudly as she saw what could only be described as a monster. What an aberration it was! Chains clung to it, rattling with every step it took, a wheel placed around it's neck, and lacerations covered it. The beast walked with a limp and gasped harshly for air.

Justine spun away from the wall, clutching at her chest trying to calm herself. _It's down there and it can't hurt you_, she thought to soothe herself, but it didn't work. It's humanoid appearance frightened her. She sat stock still against the wall for a long time until she finally felt ready to continue.

She turned left at the first turn, ignoring the path to the right for the time being. The area she had chosen to go down ended abruptly with a cave in. There was rubble blocking the entire pathway, rocks littering the ground in front of her. On top of some of the rocks was a piece of a ladder. She gazed at the ladder for a second, before turning back to the hallway she had previously ignored.

She sped up upon spotting a door at the end of the dark corridor. Beyond the doorway were more cells but something was different. She could hear... breathing.

She walked forward while trying to identify the source, almost breaking her ankle in between to gaps of the floorboards. The man who was there in the room with her heard the creaking and called out to her.

"Help me, please, help me!"

Justine walked up to the second cell on the left and saw him. He was behind a padlocked door, strapped onto a table with some sort of spike above him. To the right of the door was a lever.

"Whoever you are, if you could help me, I would be much obliged."

She stared at him and at the lever, a sick feeling welling up in her. 'They can all be saved.' This was part of her task, saving this man. She rubbed fiercely at her eyes, trying to focus. Tugging at the gate did nothing and she was afraid to pull the lever.

There was nothing she could do for him yet.

She turned her attention to the cell on the right of the man in hopes of finding a key. The door yielded to her and she went inside, staggering from a sudden flooding of memories and sensations that were not her own.

Church bells were ringing in her ears, making her feel sick and light-headed. A man murmured and sobbed, quoting the bible. Her eyes were drawn to the book labeled, 'Biblia' on the overturned bed. The jumbled words and clanging bells mixed into a horrible cacophony until –

It stopped suddenly and she was able to breathe again. She stumbled out of the cell and subsequently vomited.

"Can you hear me? It's not to late to set things right!"

She glared at the door she knew the man to be behind. Hadn't he heard the bells?

After regaining her composure she entered the doorway to her left. There was a cave-in here as well. She exited the room and continued in her clockwise direction.

The next room she entered also unlocked alien memories and thoughts; there was a crowd cheering and a repetitive thumping sound. According to the broken racket on the ground, all that she was hearing was a tennis match. But that was not all. On the table was a letter. She picked it up and was briefly horrified at what she saw underneath.

'Forgive me,' was written in blood on the table. Who had written that?

She shook off the fear and read the letter. It was from someone named Aloïs, talking to his lover. He spoke about how he would cut himself to appease her, and how he would soon joyfully murder another of her suitors, one named Basile. She turned to leave, only to spot another message written in blood.

'I am so sorry.'

She left the room, and while heading towards the next room something the chained man said stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Have you seen Justine?"

This man _knew_ her? It had to be a coincidence...

She shook it off and continued in the clockwise pattern. She opened the door and was bombarded with a loud, grating sound of sawing. The table that was once in the room was cut into pieces, but there was little else of interest.

Justine began losing hope of finding a key to free the man with only two room left to go.

There was a table just outside the next room she was going to search, sitting upon it was a small blue and green bottle. She grinned and felt some relief flood into her. If that thing with the wheel around it's neck ever happened to find her, or hurt her, she had this. Laudanum soothed the mind and the body, something she felt would be imperative.

Into the next cell she went and her mind ached with the sounds of a violin. She curled up into a corner, wishing to be swallowed up so she could escape that sound. The violin no longer sounded beautiful or delicate. It seemed as though the player was scraping the bow across the strings.

The sound stopped and left her with tears in her eyes from the dissonance she had been subjected to. She struggled to get up briefly and stumbled out of the room.

The man spoke to her again, asking her how she'd escaped.

Justine kept her silence, feeling no urge to speak to either the man or herself. For a moment she wondered if she even had the ability to speak any more. She had made _sounds_ since she had woken up, but she hadn't said any _words_.

She walked to the last room, the world seemingly shaking and twisting the moment she opened it. A roar sounded behind her and she fell face-first into the room and backed into one of the dark corners.

The chains on the monsters limbs rattled as it made its way jerkily through the room. Her breath caught in her throat when she heard it speak.

"Is that you I hear? Oh, why did this happen? Come back!"

Its voice was a mans, but it echoed strangely. She curled up into a ball, her hand accidentally knocking into the table and pushing it over. Her mind froze in fear. The monster stopped rattling and it's breathing halted.

"Is that you, my love?"

It started towards her, she could hear it's jilted footsteps coming her way. She would die if she stayed here, she needed to run! She bolted out of the cell and, without looking, exited the room, slamming the heavy door behind her.

She could hear it speak once again to her, "You came for me!"

It seemed to relieved and overjoyed to see her! She ran to where the rubble had littered her path before and hid in an indent in the wall. If luck was on her side, it would go the wrong way.

She sat motionless against the wall, horrified when she heard the hefty, iron gate being smashed open. What kind of terrible strength did this monster have?

It came around the corner and stood, looking at the rubble. Justine stared at it with bated breath, waiting for it to turn around. The close quarters she was forced to be in with this things lead her to examining the monsters body.

It's eyes seemed to be gone, bloody holes were the only things that remained. Ugly gouges seeped blood and pus all over it's body. She felt her mind slipping watching this disgusting creature, but it left in defeat quickly.

"Where did you go? Come back! Please, come back!"

She felt something akin to pity at the desperation in it's voice, the way it talked awakening some dim recollections she could rightfully call her own. She vaguely remembered a man she had once known intimately... But the sensation was gone. She couldn't recall exactly who it was.

She stood up and crawled quietly around the corner and reentered the room with all of the cells.

"Anyone there?"

Justine could feel irrational anger and feel well up in her. This man didn't know anything! It was her out here with monsters and memories that invaded her mind! How could anyone expect her to save him? The woman had lied to her! She couldn't save him!

In her rage she pulled down the lever until the strange spike above him came down and pierced his chest.

"Argh, why? I was just trying to help!"

Blood pooled around him and dripped slowly off the table. Justine swallowed thickly. What kind of person _was_ she? How could she have done this? Was this who she was?

She turn around dizzily and walked over to the ladder that had dropped down after her violent outburst. The woman had said that they could all be saved... How could she do it? The woman couldn't say those things and reward her when she murdered them!

'Them'... There were more people that she was going to be tested with.

Justine climbed up the ladder in a daze, still with a sick feeling deep in the pit of her stomach.

She crouched in the upper confines she had risen to and tried to get rid of the light-headedness she felt. She couldn't have saved him, besides, what she'd done... It was human nature. With these thoughts in mind she crawled through the tight space.

Her heart jumped into her throat when she heard an unearthly roar behind her. She continued crawling as fast as she could, bumping her head and limbs into the walls and ceiling.

Suddenly the floor beneath her disappeared and she fell to the ground below, hearing the light crunch of her kneecaps smacking the floor. Her head whipped up towards the hole she'd came though but there was nothing there.


	2. Chapter 2

Tears slipped from her eyes from the stabbing pain in her knees. She began taking in deep breaths to calm herself as she lifted up her skirt to look at the injury she had sustained. She touched at it gingerly, wincing at the sharp throb that shot through her leg.

She started suddenly, hearing a sound like the rattle of chains... Had she actually heard the sound, or perhaps, was it just her mind? She held her breath and crawled off to the side of the hallway, ignoring the aching in her legs. Seconds turned into minutes...

She relaxed after hearing no other sounds and turned back to her sore knees. She brushed dirt off of them and without seeing any further injuries she tried to stand up. Using the wall to support herself she stood up slowly, her knees bearing her weight with only slight protesting. They seemed to be fine, something that relieved her greatly.

To be sure about her diagnosis, she jogged in place for a few seconds. Again, feeling only a slight soreness in her knees she decided to continue on.

The place around her was still stone and more cave-ins seemed inevitable, even the path behind her was blocked by massive heaps of ruined stones. Ahead was dark and made even more ominous by the blood trail leading into it.

There was no point in putting it off; she either died here or tried to make an escape.

To be absolutely sure nothing was behind her, she started that way first. Her eyes glinted with self-appreciation as she noticed a phonograph hidden in a small corner just behind some of the debris. That woman must not have expected Justine to be so clever.

She squeezed through a small gap in the wreckage and walked over the it, only to have sparks of petty anger flare up inside of her. It wasn't working! Was this some sort of _mockery_ towards Justine?

She smoothed her hair back in a soothing manner, taking good care to check for damage to the phonograph until she realized that it didn't have a wax cylinder. What was the point, then?

Sudden and inexplicable ire bloomed inside her chest and she kicked once at the phonograph viciously. She smiled when the machine fell over with a satisfying thud.

Back where she started, she only had one more choice.

She set off into the darkened corridor and her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim lighting. Just as her eyes were becoming comfortable in the low light, she encountered a three-way fork.

She rubbed at her neck in tiredness and in slight frustration. To her right the door was blocked by boards and nails. To her left was a door, presumably open, but in which the blood trail lead. Ahead of her were stairs descending into more darkness.

Justine took her chances with the blood trail and the door opened easily.

Once she took a step inside, she almost wish she'd ignored it completely. The room was... unsettling. It had a table in the middle with manacles and a large vice, tables along the sides, yet _another_ phonograph and a fire burning opposite to her.

The heavy, thick, metal slab with the vice looked well-used despite the rust discolouring it heavily. Something in the back of her mind made her feel as though that the rust might not have been rust, but some thing else. She ignored that feeling.

She ignored the phonograph as well. They weren't on speaking terms at that exact moment.

She played with the vice, closing it and loosening it. She grabbed a bottle off the table to the right of the door and stuck it into the device. She played with it for a few seconds more until she crushed the bottle in the vice, giggling at the crunch of glass.

Her mood sobered when she turned to look at the tables to the left of her and she glimpsed some drawings posted up on the wall.

These drawings depicted people... One was hiding in a corner, naked and afraid. Another page was filled with medical illustrations, fitting in with the metal desk and the instruments on the table. There were calipers and knives of varying size, probably to aid in medical procedures. The last picture made her doubt her theory completely.

It made her glance around uncomfortably and she wiped her hands on her dress. The drawing showed one of the monsters with the wheel around it's head. Maybe the table was used for that purpose. Maybe the gouges on it had been made by these instruments... She picked up one of the knives from the table.

A sound from outside the door made her heart fly into her throat, her stomach twist in fear, and her hands trembling so fiercely she dropped the knife in her hand. She twisted and tripped falling backwards, arms windmilling.

The back of her head cracked soundly onto the hot, stone hearth and she slipped uneasily into unconsciousness.

Justine didn't know how long it had taken her to awake. She lay still for a few minutes, letting the jumbled and dislocated memories of her time there sort themselves out again. She slowly tried sitting up and gasped at the pain she felt at the base of her neck.

She felt around. Her hair had gotten stuck to the stone by some now-black blood that had come from a gash, most likely because of her fall. She felt around the ground until her hands closed around the knife she'd dropped before.

She lifted her had as much as she could and she cut away the hair that had gotten stuck to the hearth. This was certainly no time to think about appearances!

Gripping one of the pillars, she pulled herself up. Now that she had taken care of that small set-back, she needed to see if she had a concussion. She didn't know if she'd had head trauma like this before and she wasn't entirely certain how to see if she had one or not. All she was sure about was that impacts to the base of the skull were _bad_.

It was then that another hazy memory of the life before this absolute nightmare filtered into her mind.

A memory of her when she was younger, getting a doctor check up because people were afraid of her getting brain damage as a result of something she'd done... But again, the rest was blurred and unrecognizable.

Justine smiled victoriously. The doctor in that memory, he'd told her and those other people that all she'd gotten was a concussion! He'd said that they'd need to ask her questions about herself or what she'd done so that they could make sure the trauma was minute.

She'd have to think about what she could remember. She started listing off things about herself and then about where she was and what she'd done.

_My name is Justine. I live in France. I once knew a man with whom I was very close to. I have gone at least once to a doctor. There is a prison in this place. There are monsters. They can speak to me. There was a man in a cell and I killed him. There is a woman wants me to go through this... trial._

After that short list she could no longer think of things to add to it. Glancing briefly down to her waist she grumpily added another item to her 'Concussion' list.

_I have a useless lantern._

She snorted at that little addition before groaning in pain. The back of her neck was aching intensely. When she prodded it, her hand came back covered in red.

She could feel her eyes beginning to tear up but she couldn't cry. She'd gone this far without breaking down. She steeled herself and instead focused on the room, her eyes darting about.

They landed on the phonograph and her unhappiness amplified.

She couldn't put it off forever. She stumbled clumsily around the table with the vice and stopped in front of the gleaming machine. How it could look so cleanly in this kind of setting was strange, but she ignored it for the time being.

She cranked it and was, this time, not at all startled to her the woman start talking to her.

"Congratulations for coming this far, I am so excited for you."

Justine smirked at the praise. She was rather good at this, wasn't she?

"I do hope you managed to save Monsieur Fournier. He was a friend of my Papa you know. Friendly fellow, a real bon garçon, but frail of mind."

Her good mood plummeted. She suddenly felt very insulted by this strange woman with the high, superficial voice. Was it not the woman's fault for the man dying? Justine was just reacting to the situation she was put in.

"He puts up an impressive front, but it's all an act, I assure you."

She agreed, the man didn't seem so high and mighty strapped to a table. He'd practically been begging her to get him out of that place. He was better company with the spike through the chest.

"Please go on, we are just getting started."

The phonograph became silent once more and she started out the doorway, head and knee troubles all but forgotten. In her haste, she missed the letter on the stone hearth.

She jumped down the steps and almost smacked face-first into a heavy, red door. She rubbed her face, feeling tired and over-worked. Nonetheless, she went through it.

This next area was a library according to all the books scattered around.

And, of course, a phonograph. This was beginning to get tiring for Justine. She didn't want to have to listen to this woman talk all day again. What was she going to mock her about this time? Cutting her hair off? She still felt a little sore about that.

She wound it up.

"On this next piece, you should be looking for some _divine_ inspiration."

Justine snorted derisively, thinking, _'Divine,' she says! Nothing divine about what I've seen around here so far!_

"Time to delve into your spiritual side. What do you see? Is the man begging for mercy or... is he being blessed? Perhaps both! Father used to say there were no right answers. Have the _light_ guide you."

She was starting to get quite fed up with all of the increasingly vague clues that the woman was giving to her. If she wanted something from her, why didn't she just come out and say it? On the plus side, there was someone else that she could try to save. Or, at the very least, try not to brutally murder.

She turned to the door on her right first and shrieked. There was a person standing in the corner, staring at her.

Her fear shifted into disbelief. That was certainly no person, it was a stone statue. It was of a man, apparently naked, with his hands chained in front of him, and his head bowed. She turned and looked down the hallway; there were more.

She leaned against the wall and tried to calm her erratically beating heart.

Once she had gathered her bravery once again, she did what she had first set out to do and entered the first door on the right.

It seemed to be an office of some sort. A desk against the far wall, surrounded by many shelves that were absolutely bursting from all the books that were packed inside them. She glanced around, slightly surprised at the well-lit room. She felt another wave of nostalgia wash over her, similar to when she'd heard the monster speak. It felt like she knew this place...

No matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn't quite place the memory in her mind. She shrugged it off; Justine refused to dwell upon something that she couldn't help. Her memories would come back sooner or later.

Stepping up to the desk her eyes were drawn to a small frame on it. As she examined it, she noticed something inscribed into the side of it, 'Frame 1'. She had almost tossed it aside until a paper on the desk caught her eye. It was titled 'Results' and it spoke of a 'light box' and frames.

Her eyes traveled from frame to letter and back again quite a few times. Again that sick feeling that she was forgetting something crucial clenched in her stomach...

She stuffed both items into the pockets of her dress, and was just about to leave when she spotted two tinderboxes on one of the shelves. She could never be sure that she wouldn't need them, and they'd always be a welcome addition to her team of one.

She snatched them up and left the room, going in to the room opposite her. It was dark and was seemingly filled with odds and ends. She grinned as she looked up towards the ceiling. There was a lamp that could be lit with a tinderbox... Good thing she'd just found some.

As she was attempting to light it she couldn't help but feel as though it had been some higher power looking out for her. Her finding two tinderboxes only to need them a few seconds later? Her name should have been Serendipity.

Finally the sparks caught and she could see.

It had many shelves in it and it appeared to be a room for storage. It had pots, vases, books and other assorted knickknacks. She found some more tinderboxes on one of the shelves and flipped uninterestedly through some books before she found the thing she knew was left for her. By the woman or the aforementioned higher power it didn't matter. It was the second frame.

She picked it up and left the room, continuing down the hallway. She stuck to the left side of the corridor and, only taking a few moments to reflect on some paintings on the walls, went inside.

It was dark, darker than the last room. It was made even more ominous by the large, lumbering bookshelves stacked inside the room. There were couches and some tables spread out amongst the shelves, and some unlit lanterns hung up on the ceiling.

She walked briskly down both aisles and lit one lantern on each side of the room. It wasn't all that bright by any means, but it was most certainly better than it had been. She retraced her steps and aside from the third frame, nothing seemed to be of any importance.

Just as she was about to leave, her eyes landed on a couch in one of the corners of the room. She'd worked pretty hard, she thought. No reason she couldn't have a break for a while. Just for a few minutes...

It was only after she woke up, eyes heavy with slumber and head muddled that she realized she'd drifted off. She groaned into her hand, and stood up once she'd rubbed the sleep from her face.

Time to set off again...


End file.
